It was draining to care, so I could only smirk. The expression felt foreign on my face, like wearing someone else's coat. Five thousand messages into the void. Five thousand small surrenders disguised as persistence. I'd been the most loyal woman in the Sloane household, and I had the receipts to prove that loyalty had been a monologue.
Upstairs, in the living room, Dominic's phone would buzz with the notification of the transfer being rejected. I could imagine his hand clenched around the phone as he read the alert. The silver lighter would be in his other hand, rolling between thumb and forefinger, and for once I hoped the rolling stopped. I hoped the stillness hit him. I hoped he felt even a fraction of the nothing I'd been swallowing for years.
Later that night, around eight, my phone rang. Dominic's name flashed on the screen.
I was sitting in a booth at a diner near my place, a quiet establishment on the border of neutral territory where nobody knew my face or cared whose woman I was. I picked at my food, moving a piece of grilled chicken from one side of the plate to the other.
"Hey, where are you?" he asked, sounding almost… concerned.
"What's up?" I asked, sidestepping his question.
"Nothing much," Dominic replied, his voice softer now. Softer than I'd heard it in months. The Don's voice, stripped of its authority, was just a man's voice. Just a voice. "I just wanted to say… the cake you made was delicious. As always."
There was a brief silence on the line. I pressed my thumb against the inside of my ring finger, feeling the bare skin where nothing had ever been placed.
Then he added in a lower voice, "Thanks. I know it was a lot of effort."
Before I could respond, I heard Penelope's sugary voice in the background, and the softness in his tone made sudden, sickening sense. He wasn't calling because he was grateful. He was calling because she was watching, and even a Don needs to perform generosity when his audience expects it.
"Olivia!" she called out, her tone light and overly sweet, pitched to carry. "I heard from Dominic that you made my birthday cake today. Wow, you're so talented! I wish I could do that… but I'm so clumsy, Dominic's always calling me his little dummy."